


How Gabe Met Jesse

by GhostScript



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Addiction, Blackwatch Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Cannonish, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Route 66 (Overwatch), Young Jesse McCree, panorama diner (overwatch)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 03:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12831936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostScript/pseuds/GhostScript
Summary: Just writing to write, but my fantasy guess of the pieces connecting the origins of the McCree and Reyes/Blackwatch relationship.





	How Gabe Met Jesse

The inside of the Panorama diner matched the outside of the Route 66 outpost- a weathered and bitter time-capsule held together by roadside dust and sheer force of will, tucked within the arms of a dry South West canyon.  
The red leather booths smelled like cigarettes and stale syrup and were frayed, and most had knife-cuts or scrawled messages in marker, and most had been tagged by the Deadlock Rebels, imagining themselves the kings of that tiny stretch of nothing.  
The Deadlock Rebels were, in reality, just a mid level motorcycle gang now in over their heads, previously specializing in small time hustles, robberies, and smuggling contraband de jour stuffed in bike parts- all in all debatably ignorable until their recent venture into arms dealing.  
Almost overnight they were supplying arsenals to every outlaw faction in the U.S, via the Mexican mafia Los Muertos, who in return used them as an inconspicuous convoy to bring people and drugs over the border.  
Overwatch caught wind of this entirely on accident, when a Los Muertos foot soldier had a few too many at a Texas titty bar and started running his mouth, unbeknownst to him just one table away from an off-duty sheriff.  
Los Muertos was too intricate to infiltrate first- Overwatch had tried before, too many secret handshakes and blood-in hazing, but the rebels- that was a different story. They were cocky, and reckless, and that was exactly why Gabriel Reyes found himself at the Panorama diner, just kitty-corner from the Deadlock hangout.  
If they could get cut off the U.S access from the Meurtos, and simultaneously scare a few Deadlock into spitting out some points of interest in Mexico they’d start to have some real headway.  
Gabriel could pass himself off as any other stranger wandering through looking for a hard days work. His face was plain enough sans some scars, but he could put on a beanie cap and a long jacket and be practically invisible.  
Since he’d been given his own division of Overwatch; a covert special ops branch named Black Watch, he felt like he could finally do some real work, without the bells and whistles that went along with being a “hero.”  
Six weeks ago he’d got himself hired as a line cook at the diner, twelve hour shifts, four days a week. They didn’t care if he could cook or not, just that he could show up and keep his head down.  
He easily became a fly on the wall, eaves dropping on bits and pieces of a much larger puzzle- gossip, heists, guard posts, and the Deadlock rebels next big move.  
Most of the gang seemed hot-headed and simple, and he loathed them.  
They were loud and obnoxious, constantly cat-calling the waitresses, spilling food and drinks, playing the same ACDC songs on the jukebox – just a daily tornado of revved up testosterone and grease. The female members were usually even worse than the males; maybe they felt they had more to prove. They were the ones that called him racial slurs when they ordered their sunny-side eggs.  
He grit his teethed and bit his tongue at them, all of them except the kid.  
The kid usually came in alone, in the early afternoon. Gabriel would hear the hum of his motorcycle, a slim black model triumph with a few assorted fill in pieces from older versions rigged together, and then the slow plod of cowboy boots as he lit a cigarette outside.  
Unlike his compatriots, the kid had a kind of thoughtful pace, quiet except for the occasional quip.  
Every time that he came in to the Panarama alone he would greet the waitress, which was either the comely Maria or the calloused and  
‘too-old-for-this-shit’ Florence, politely order a coffee, and stare out the window.  
He couldn’t have been more than seventeen, Gabe guessed. He’d had intell pull files for a lot of the members but some seemed to slip through the cracks like ghosts thanks to layers of aliases and the nomadic lifestyle.  
The kid was unkempt, and tattooed like the others, but scrawny, often showing up with new bruises and scrapes. He wore the same tell-tale black denim vest emblazoned with the Deadlock Rebels skull on the back and his nametag on the breast pocket that read McCree, and a dingy red bandana around his neck.  
Gabe had only seen the kid actually eat at the diner twice, since he’d started spying, and it was once scraps of toast left by a fellow biker and once a waffle which he’d eaten a few bites and then fell asleep next to.  
He had deduced that he might be some sort of lookout, which would explain his schedule- the diner most likely his pit stop before reporting back to Chainsaw or Wolf or one of a handful of names meant to intimidate.  
Wolf was always around, and always manic. He was either bragging about his billiards prowess and chasing skirts, or challenging other rebels to machismo contest.  
He’d seen Wolf and McCree play fighting before, but when McCree got a sneaky left-hook in, Wolf turned beet red and pulled a knife out on him.  
From what he ‘d gathered, Wolf was second in command, and the big boss- the primo Rebel- was a man who called himself Bullet and he knew this because Bullet never came into the diner.  
He’d heard rumour that Bullet never left the hideout, but there were varying degrees of explanations why from rightful paranoia to a hilarious theory about vampirism.  
The kid on the other hand always seemed like he wanted to get away from the rest of them. He often fell asleep at the diner, sometimes before he could even finish his cigarette. There were tiny singed holes in his bandana from still burning ash.  
If the waitress on deck was Maria, she would quietly pluck the cigarette from his lips to stub it out in an ashtray, and let him sleep a few more minutes.  
Florence would put her hands on her hips, and as if they were rehearsing a play, boom out the words “Darlin’ this aint a hotel!” to which he’d slur back “Well that’s good cuz the beds are lousy.”  
There was a week he had a worn paperback copy of Vonnegut book in his back pocket, but later Gabe found it in the trash outback.  
Something deep down inside made Gabe want to believe otherwise, but he’d also seen the needle marks riddling the crooks of McCree’s arms. He may have been a teenager, but Deadlock doesn’t keep children, and that gave him a feeling much like swallowing a stone. 

It didn’t matter in the big picture, he thought. McCree was just a side-note and anyway he hadn’t seen him in a few days. Summer was starting to creep in its madness and the only relief was the short cool-off of the expansive starlight.  
There was a palpable buzz amongst the gang, they were getting ready to pull of a heist but none of them would know the what and where until Wolf returned from a meeting with Los Muertos.  
Overwatch wanted them to snag them sooner than later, Jack Morrison, the all-American poster boy for heroes himself was even coming back from London to help monitor the sting. They wanted it to be delicate, and controllable. That’s what they said anyway, but Gabriel knew Jack just couldn’t keep his fucking nose out of his business.  
Timing was of utmost importance. He couldn’t jump the gun or spook them.  
Wolf was coming back from Friday afternoon, so Gabe had made sure he was working every shift he could.  
He grabbed his paper time-slip off the rack on the wall and punched in for seven A.M.  
He put on his stained apron and washed his hands in the sink next to the freezer full of sausage links and slabs of bacon. 

 

Jesse McCree would never have said he didn’t have a chance because he didn’t know what a chance was. He grew up poor, and he grew up alone.  
His mother had been sweet, he thought he could remember that. Moments when she’d tuck wisps of his brown hair gently behind his ears as he fell asleep on her lap, or when she’d sing quietly bits of the same song “someone to love me too, love me too.”  
She drank whiskey and lemonade, and smoked long cigarettes that made her look like a movie star.  
He thought often on a memory of them walking through a farmers market and sharing a Nevado, the sugar on his hands sticky and pungent, but never for long as the man he wished wasn’t his real father would creep in, swarming his recollection with the leather belt he could still feel hotly stinging his skin and the glass bottles that shattered and the taste of copper in his mouth.  
He’d feel a pain piercing his chest as he blamed himself for leaving and letting her die.  
His father had shot his mother down like a dog in the street before turning the gun on himself, and Jesse wasn’t there to stop him.  
This pain was what fuelled him, and what tore him apart at the seams. He learned to shoot because of it, but he also learned later to shoot dope.  
When he ran away he was nine years old and ran to the only other place he knew, his cousin Luke’s hangout across town. Luke had started making friends with leather-clad bikers with beards bigger than their faces and voices like gravel, and had also changed his name to Wolf because he thought it sounded tough and he’d seen a picture of one stamped on a crate of fireworks once.  
Wolf didn’t give two-fucks what Jesse did as long as he also ran errands and kept his mouth shut. He wasn’t like a father or a brother but he was familiar and kept him alive.  
That’s how Jesse McCree became a Deadlock Rebel.  
Wolf got in to his own self medicating, quickly becoming a proficient meth cook and procurer of anabolic steroids.  
When things didn’t go well, Wolf would take it out on Jesse, but he didn’t mind because it meant he had a purpose, he thought it made him stronger, and if things were particularly bad whomever Wolf was screwing would stitch him back up after because their purpose was expressing Wolf’s guilt for him. Sympatico.  
They’d always have fragrant hair and big faux gold jewelry that caught the light just so.  
Jesse made himself useful; he studied guns, maps, and learnt Spanish. He learned to ride a dirtbike at age twelve, barely able to hold it up, but he immediately volunteered to ride out ahead of the gang to scope out before things got hairy, and vowed never to betray his new family- He swore to be a Rebel for life.  
Their motto was “die guns blazing”; Wolf had gotten the letters D-G-B tattooed across his throat.  
He graduated to a proper motorcycle soon after, amongst other things.  
The heroin was just useful at first, to numb the edges. One of Wolf’s girlfriends gave him his first taste on his fifteenth birthday. He could take more punches, he could slam the back of his revolver ‘til his hand bled and not feel it.  
The first time he met the Rebel’s head honcho, Bullet, he expected a barrel-chest rogue, with perhaps a cool eye patch and impressive stature but Bullet was none of those things, instead a heavy set and hairy older man who wheezed through his nostrils when he spoke and let his hands stray uncomfortably close to Jesse when he thought no one was looking. Bullet said he’d been watching him, but he assumed wrongly it was because he saw potential. He stared a little too long in a way that made Jesse’s skin crawl.  
At age sixteen Jesse figured himself grown. He’d killed a man for the first time, someone from a rival MC. His gun had felt a hundred times heavier in those seconds as he unloaded a barrel into the face and chest of his enemy.  
Wolf was proud. Bullet was proud.  
Now at seventeen he’d gotten used to it- all of it. He’d even come to terms with the occasional behind closed doors groping he’d receive from Bullet, who always seemed to have “special” tasks for him. Bullet would then pay Jesse directly in heroin because it was cheaper for the gang, and he could see him becoming more pliable. Slimy was the best word to describe Bullet’s repeat attempts to coax him into more than just the occasional handful and Jesse would delicately dance himself out of the situation with carefully chosen words.  
Today was no different. Bullet had licked his lips and ran his oven mitt of a hand up Jesse’s inner thigh as he palmed four small parcels of dope into his jeans pocket.  
“You’re a real asset to me Jesse McCree, you and that dead-eye shot” he whispered teasing, “I’d like to keep you close.”  
Jesse had scouted new trade routes for the shipment of AR-15’s coming in from Hidalgo, which had saved the gang two hours in transit time and bypassed a smokey stop.  
He scooted back slowly at the touch, his back meeting the wall behind him.  
Jesse tried to keep the subject on business “So them assault rifles are due in next week, yeah? So you’ll be wantin’ me to ride out and meet em at the half way marker an…”  
Bullet pulled a folded up note from his leather jacket pocket and handed it over “No, Muertos is sending along some special cargo so they’ll be riding shotgun. I want you to be on point for the heist tomorrow. All the info is on that paper. It’s just you and Wolf, and Bert, and Chico gonna rob the target. Bring it back here.”  
Jesse nodded, unable to ask anymore questions as Bullets grip now found itself around his neck.  
“Jesse,” he snarled “You know I’ve been playin’ nice McCree but you know but I can take you whenever I want. I might have run out of patience.”  
He held him there in silence, staring into his eyes with such intent it was if the world had paused. Jesse felt himself uncontrollably trembling. White spots swelled on his skin around Bullet’s finger-tips.  
Just then came a knock on the door, followed by the muffled sound of Terry “Hellhound” Jones, the Rebel’s go–to bike mechanic, muttering about a new gas tank for the prized Harley Bullet never took out.  
The distraction let Jesse squirm himself free, as soon as he was clear of the door he found himself running to his bike as if he could ride until he and it collapsed but he only made it as far as the diner. He needed to stop and clear his head.  
He tapped the outside of his pocket with the tips of his fingers.  
The Panaroma diner was his favorite place to go because it was clean and quiet and the only place he could go where he could pretend for an hour or two that he didn’t have anywhere else to be.  
He ordered a coffee from Maria, avoiding the eye of the stern cook behind the counter, and b-lined to the bathroom to get high.  
He worked as nimbly as ever, over eager for the release from everything swimming in his head. He cooked all four bags Bullet had given him, it was too late when he realized something was wrong. He pulled the needle from his arm, and surrendered to the blackness burning him from the edges in.

 

It was the third time Maria had knocked on the bathroom door and called out for the kid that his coffee was getting cold.  
Gabriel turned the heat down on the gravy he’d started and came out from the kitchen.  
“He’s prolly gonna die in there if you can’t bust the door down.”  
Gabe nodded, stuffing the dishrag from his hands into his back pocket. He eyed the door around the edges and firmly at the spot right underneath the lock, swiftly stomp kicking it. The first kick cracked it. The third bust it open, smacking McCree’s limp legs.  
He was pale and sallow, turning blue at the lips. A bright spatter of blood trickled from his arm to the syringe beside.  
Maria looked away “Aw hell, I’ll get some water and one of them bikers to fetch him. He can’t die in the damn diner! I can’t work somewheres haunted!”  
Gabriel shook his head “Just grab the first aid box from under the counter. There’s Narcan in there. And he’ll probably puke so a mop and bucket.”  
Maria was shakey and lit a cigarette for herself first. She fetched Gabe the first-aid kit, a shoe-boxed sized metal ammo tin now housing assorted bandaids and expired burn cream, and a shiv made out of a piece of sharp aluminum siding, but most importantly the come-to shot. She watched from a distance, but watched nonetheless because human nature loves a car crash.  
Gabriel took the pistol from McCree’s gun belt and set it on the table closest before he administered the Narcan, Jesse kicked up like a mule nearly cracking him across the jaw.  
“The fuck?!”  
“Whoah kid settle down. You’re alright.”  
McCree sloppily reached for his missing side arm, wide eyed and panicked.  
“You gonna shoot me for saving your life? I didn’t realize this as your death moan.”  
McCree sat up at best he could and spat, “Need a cigarette.”  
Gabriel pointed at the black denim vest crumpled beside them, “They’re in there, I take it?”  
He fetched the Zippo and the pack of Marlboro reds from the breast pocket and lit one for each of them. Stuffed inside the pack was a folder scrap of paper with an address and time, which Gabe read with his peripherals.  
McCree hadn’t regained proper feel for his limbs yet so Gabe set the smoke between his lips for him.  
“You don’t have anywhere else?”  
Jesse didn’t answer. He did what he’d been conditioned to do; just stare back. This wasn’t a Rebel in front of him, he wasn’t family. He couldn’t hold it long though as he felt his eyelids drooping back down.  
Gabriel slapped him lightly across the face, “OK, OK, stay with me kid.”  
McCree inhaled deeply, smoke escaping from his nostrils and the corners of his crooked mouth.  
“Get back to your biscuits, Cook.”  
“Your name’s McCree right? That your real name?”  
He answered with a side eye in place of words. Gabriel gave him a second dose of Narcan, “My name is Gabriel. I was like you once, lost that is. I’m just making sure that Maria here doesn’t have to deal with your corpse, OK? Because I’m pretty sure Pete that owns this place would tell her to chop you up and serve you as chicken fried steak or something.”  
McCree sputtered out a laugh.  
“Oh good, you still have some brain cells left.”  
“Where’s my gun?”  
Gabriel chuckled setting a glass of water before him, “Nevermind I retract my statement. Kid, just relax.”  
He wanted to relax except he felt bile burning his esophagus, his head felt like a bag of rusty nails, and seeing the paper with Bullet’s chicken scratch writing near his feet flooded Jesse with everything he’d just tried to avoid thinking about. He had to meet for the heist. He had to talk to Wolf. He lunged up, grabbing his vest and throwing it back on, stuffing his cigarettes and the paper roughly back into their place. He pushed past Gabriel, snatching his revolver off the table, nearly tripping over the mop handle Maria had just propped up against the wall.  
“Leave me alone cocinero, I got shit to do.”  
He stumbled towards the door, Gabriel in toe. When they got outside Jesse barely managed to climb onto his bike but when Gabe stepped closer, Jesse shot the glass of water right out of his hand before he’d even had a chance to say stop. 

 

 

They waited until Wolf, McCree and two others had opened the hatch gate to the gang’s storage section of their hideout before moving in, but they had been tailing them the whole time. They’d planted a transmitter in the payload itself as a back up. Black Watch moved swift, and clean. The Rebels that resisted were put down quickly and with precision. Black Watch snipers watched the perimeter, Gabriel Reyes and his squadron let the raid.  
Most of the Deadlock tried to shoot their way out. Wolf grabbed a saddlebag of cash from the gangs safe but took a stray bullet to the chest in the crossfire.  
Bullet didn’t fight back, Bullet grabbed McCree in a choke hold and used him for a human shield as he escaped, tossing him to the ground once he’d reached the safety of a Jeep Wrangler facing South. McCree managed to clip the shoulder of an operative but Gabriel got the drop, cracking him with the butt of his shotgun then wrestling him down, easily having twice his weight on him.  
Black Watch killed twenty-four Rebels and arrested four, including Jesse McCree. They seized enough weaponry, drugs, and other illicit materials to put each of them away for several lifetimes. Computers were sent to the labs for decrypting, cataloguing. On paper it was a success.  
Jack Morrisson scheduled a debriefing the following morning, the prisoners transported to Overwatch’s facility in Austin.  
Files were prepared. Stacks and stacks of paperwork.  
Two of the Rebels agreed to talk but had little to nothing of use, one plead guilty to everything and took his sentence in stride. Jesse McCree hadn’t said a word, still caked in dried blood from his nose and a one inch split in his forehead. The cuffs around his wrists bright against the purple and yellow of bruises.  
When Gabriel and Jack entered however, he laughed.  
“I knew there was no way in hell you were a real cook.”  
Jack as usual was all bullheaded business. He launched right in asking about arms deals and what Los Muertos was importing. Gabe crossed his arms and stood by the door.  
“I ain’t telling you shit.”  
Jack leaned in close, “Listen up son, we’re your only option here. We can lighten your sentence if you play your cards right.”  
Jesse flashed half a grin, enough to show teeth, “I ain’t your son, bendejo.”  
Jack planted his palms loud and firm on the metal table between them, “You think this is a game? You’re right you aren’t my son. I’d never have raised a lowlife junkie who’s too busy getting smacked up out of his head to know what’s good for him.”  
The sound of McCree’s forehead breaking Jack’s nose was something Gabe would never forget. He hit him like a hammer, blood sputtering out like a smashed tomato.  
Jack held his face tightly muttering a fountain of cusses and he stormed out of the interrogation room.  
Gabe sat down, sighing as he pulled out a file from under his arm and slid it towards Jesse.  
“This is our file on you. Compiled from resources we had and the tabs you probably didn’t know they kept on you within your precious gang. I know you’re alone, now that your cousin is dead. Your life as you know it can go one of two ways. First of all, and this is going to happen regardless, you are gonna start to feel sick, aren’t you? Because it’s been what… forty-eight hours since your last fix? I bet your starting to feel like bugs under your skin, aren’t you? So you’re going to withdrawal from the shit you’ve been pumping in to your arms and then you are either going to go straight to prison where you’ll probably die, or you are going to wise the fuck up. I know you didn’t like the way your life was. I know deep down you aren’t like the shit heads you surround yourself with. Overwatch wants to take down Los Meurtos and you can help us.”  
“I aint a fuckin snitch.”  
“Kid, I don’t want you to snitch. I want you to help me. Black Watch is my baby, and I think you aren’t as doomed as you think you are. I’m asking you to join me. You aren’t a bad shot, anyway.”  
Jesse washed over with confusion. Getting a job offer was the last thing he expected to get in that room.  
"Fuck you."  
"You ever watched that joke video where Gordon Ramsey puts the two slices of bread around someones head and calls them an idiot sandwich? That's you Jesse. You're being an idiot sandwich."  
"Tu no me conoces."  
"Yo soy tú, kid. But have it your way. Squirm."  
Gabriel left the file on the table and walked out. "Idiot sandwich."

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack, of course, was furious.  
"How the hell can you think this is a good idea? I'd be more pissed but I know there's no way that cowboy lookin' fuck-up is ever going to agree to join Black Watch."  
Gabriel sighed heavily, pouring a fresh cup of coffee into his mug. "He's handy, Jack. He's got raw talent- jesus the tactical planning he did for those bikers... I told you what a crack shot he is on drugs can you imagine what he's like sober?"  
"Yeah I do, Gabe. I imagine he's uncontrollable."  
"He's like a rescue dog."  
"Is that it Gabe?! All this because you want a dog? I can get you a dog." Jack fished around in the pink paper box on the counter for an almond croissant and took a bite, powdered sugar peppering his lips.  
"C'mon Jack. If he washes out, he washes out but I know him. That gang life was all he knew, sure, but why do people join gangs in the first place? To feel like they belong somewhere. He wants a family. We show him a little TLC he'll be more loyal to us then any of those Deadlock assholes."  
Jack brushed flakes of pastry from his hands exasperated "You think because you were in a gang that every-"  
"You're out of your element Morrisson."  
The men stood in silence for a few minutes, leaning against the counter, finishing their respective breakfasts.  
"Can I get a budget extension for better coffee?"  
Jack laughed, "Doesn't matter how it tastes Gabe, just that it works." He shifted his weight to his other side, changing his tone now that his temper was gone "Y'know Amari was just in there checking up on your boy. Says he's hallucinating something fierce and didn't believe she was real. Wants to transfer him to Angela."  
"He's almost through it. He needs to suffer to appreciate the not suffering."

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When McCree finally signed the form agreeing to work off his sentence with Black Watch he told himself he would only pretend to help. He'd feed them bad leads until he could figure a way out. He'd find a way to get back to what he was used to... But something felt strange; he didn't feel like a prisoner. He'd thrown his fit. He'd kicked and screamed and yet two weeks later he found himself walking the grounds of their training facility. He was monitored with an ankle bracelet, sure, but it was comforting in a way he could explain. They fed him there. He had his own room with clean sheets.  
When he felt like using, when his mind raced with hair-brained schemes of robbing the med bay he had someone to call and she would be waiting with a patient smile until the urge was gone.  
"Looking Mighty fine today Ma'am."  
"Jesse McCree for the last time I've asked you to call me Ana. Now get over here and let me help you fix that wild west gun stance you've got going on."


End file.
